Welcome

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I am writing this blog to help students of Dobro™ become better students. It does not teach you how to play the Dobro; you should get that from instructors or from their books and CDs. Use this blog as a companion piece to your other instruction.

The posts cover two main areas of discussion:

• How to practice effectively
• How to apply music theory to the Dobro

The first topic, how to practice effectively, comes from my own introspection and experimentation when I have stagnated in my journey toward learning this instrument. I realized that there is a difference between playing an hour a day and practicing an hour a day. Both are fun, but the first one doesn't improve your skills or increase your knowledge nearly as quickly as the second one does.

The second topic, music theory, lays a road map of the musical landscape that will let you do the following:

• Figure out where you are
• Relate where you are to other landmarks in the landscape
• Make better decisions about where to go next

I am writing this initially as a blog, but I plan some day to compile it into a more cohesive document. The material is copyrighted but I am publishing it to share it. Feel free to "reshare" it but please give me appropriate attribution if you do (and please provide links back to the blog or specific post).


And of course, feel free to add comments and enrich the conversation.

As I add posts organically, I am maintaining a contents post that organizes the posts logically by topic.

Credits

I am deeply indebted to the following people who have instructed me and made my journey richer and more enjoyable than if I had been on my own:
David Ellis
Mark van Allen
Mike Witcher
Ivan Rosenberg
Steve Kaufman

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Dobro is a registered trademark of the Gibson Guitar Corporation